


Finding Friendship in an Undead Emo

by Mello_Time



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Also it's not a oneshot anymore, Angst?, Apocalypse, Background DICE (Dangan Ronpa), Body Horror, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Gore, Hugs, I shouldn't have written this, M/M, Oneshot, The Author Regrets Everything, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, Zombie Apocalypse, attempts at gardening, but it's pretty nice in my opinion, human Ouma, it's not that bad, just descriptions of a lot of gross stuff, just one, no beta we die like Sai-chan did lol, not really angst but I'll tag it, or let it get so long, tomatoes, zombie Saihara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29367735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mello_Time/pseuds/Mello_Time
Summary: But there was nowhere to run. The alarms were too late. All they did was cause the panic to rise from unmanageable to a complete rampage, society crumbling faster than it could comprehend. People dying left and right, buildings broken into and burning. Every single television on and blaring with the manic fever of chaos that infected the entire planet, along with the twisted bodies of those who didn’t manage to fight it off.Because that’s what it was. An infection. A virus of the mind.~Ouma, one of the few survivors of a zombie outbreak that slaughtered humanity, finds his stone heart once again feeling something for the half-zombie he finds in an abandoned house. Not love, but something a little bit like happiness. Like friendship.Amazing, because it was more up Ouma's alley to stab the undead fuckers on sight.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 143





	1. Meeting Each Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi
> 
> This entire thing started with me about to fall asleep and then thinking "What if plantonic Oumasai, but ZOMBIES" and then I proceeded to spend the next three days making it a reality. Idk man, inspiration is finicky. Enjoy it, either way.

Things had fallen apart when the alarm rang. 

He can still hear it now. The high pitched, ear-bleeding whine seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The source untraceable, just a normal day until the noise screamed to the heavens. It struck him with the exact emotions it was designed to invoke. Danger. Fear. Desperation to run, to escape, to be anywhere but where you were. 

But there was nowhere to run. The alarms were too late. All they did was cause the panic to rise from unmanageable to a complete rampage, society crumbling faster than it could comprehend. People dying left and right, buildings broken into and burning. Every single television on and blaring with the manic fever of chaos that infected the entire planet, along with the twisted bodies of those who didn’t manage to fight it off.

Because that’s what it was. An infection. A virus of the mind.

Its purpose was biological warfare. To bring an enemy to its knees when its citizens were too sick and weak to fight, and to live. Using nature itself to kill. But of course, using that nature with the poisonous touch of humanity, twisting it into something so horrible that nothing would fight against it. It would succeed in its job to murder, but it wouldn’t stop until every single possible victim dropped dead. And we failed to realize that.

So once it escaped that lab, we were doomed. Doomed from the start. 

There’s no containing it. It was designed to spread fast, practically untraceable until the sufferer was already a mindless cannibalistic monster on legs. An unforeseen mutation, turning the infection into an even more unstoppable force. No one wanted to lose hope. No one wanted this to be the end. But it was.

~

Just a year and a half later, the population had already been reduced by 75 percent. Half of those were dead, killed before the sickness could truly take hold. The rest were out there, shells of who they once were, wandering the long emptied streets in endless hunger, unable to die, but unable to truly live. Horrifying to think about, horrifying to witness. 

Those who still lived hid away, watching from afar. He hid too. What other choice did he have? 

He couldn’t end up like those lost, rotting souls. 

He couldn’t end up like . . .

~

When those mechanic bells whined out the beginning of the end, Ouma had been with DICE.

The nine people who had grown the closest to him, inseparable. Those who he fully trusted, trusted more than himself. For some reason, they trusted him too. So they stuck together, all ten of them, pulling pranks and laughing and enjoying youth in a cruel, but still standing world. They had been dealt unfair hands, but they played the game to have fun, and felt unstoppable. 

Until that ear-spitting ring. Until Spades turned around from being hunched in that alleyway, eyes gone wild and empty, pale and shaking. Until she lunged at Queen, salivating as teeth sank into the other member’s neck, turning her eyes from fearful to dead in moments.

Ouma had frozen, just watched as each and every one of them ran from each other, yelling and crying and the wet sounds of blood splattering and the crunches of shattering bones. He stood there until he couldn’t anymore, and sprinted away, never looking back to see who survived, who didn’t.

Abandoning them to a horrendous fate, just like the coward that he always was.

~

He was running now, actually. 

Not that he had time to think about it. His mind was completely blank, body focused on pushing forward instead of the currently meaningless task of thought. His feet pounded onto the cracked and dirty pavement with the same rhythm as his heart, hair flying out of his eyes with the momentum of moving forward. The noise of infected was clamoring behind him, shuffles and groans combined with the grotesque sounds of deteriorated flesh and bone sliding in and out of place as they moved against each other, no longer built to withstand the hardships of being alive.

It was ugly, even if Ouma couldn’t see it. He shoved himself faster against the air, incomprehensive thoughts of prayer and pleads to some sort of higher power spilling in panted breaths. His stamina had increased exponentially over what felt like years of constant runs like this, but there was no way he could run forever. Especially when compared to the neverending determination to kill in the sickened. They would go forever, minds too primitive to stop and rest. They’d chase until their bodies failed for good.

Ouma didn’t have that perk, and never wanted to have it if it meant dying. So, when he saw that the abandoned house up ahead finally had an actual door instead of a scraped and empty doorway, he dashed inside, slamming the door hard enough to cause a small bit of recoil. 

A lucky side effect of the virus was extremely short term memory. On the contrary, the ridiculously enhanced senses could detect any forgotten prey in replacement of memory. By the time that Ouma had closed the door, all of his pursuers had already forgotten of his existence. For once, Ouma’s luck held out. All the windows were intact and closed, blocking his scent. The door was solid wood, so they couldn’t see him. Ouma stayed dead silent, barely breathing.

And so, the infected forgot. He was in the clear.

But that also meant that they forgot very soon. So soon, in fact, that they ended up stopping right outside of the house he had locked himself in, standing around and waiting aimlessly for something new to chase.

So Ouma was now stuck inside a random house until some poor creature - or person - stumbled onto this random obscure street, and led the horde away. A possibility that was basically zero to none when more than half of society was dead or was also infected, therefore not on the sickened’s radar.

The former supreme leader found it an appropriate time to lock the door, hold his face in his hands, and scream profanity.

~ 

The first step to checking that a location was a good enough camp was checking for infected. 

Ouma found out the layout of the house in the process; it was small, a single floor. It had a cellar, which was stocked with canned food. How Ouma managed to be so lucky was unclear. The best bet was that the universe was finally done fucking with him and decided to throw him a bone for once. Either way, it was a blessing. There was enough food to keep him from starving for several years, if he rationed it properly. And if there were no surprises. Which there always were. So maybe more like a year and a half at the worst.

There was a fuck ton of food. That was that. And whoever had owned this house used to belong to was either a nutjob or unhealthily paranoid. They still ended up dead, so more likely the former.

The rest of the house was plain, but very much livable. A trashed living room and kitchen, but furniture was still mostly intact. Appliances were completely trashed, but were unusable anyway. Electricity had been down for months now.

A single bathroom, and two bedrooms. The bathroom looked sanitary enough, and the first bedroom was beautiful for apocalypse standards. Just a bare mattress on the floor, dresser, and closet, but all three were relatively in order. The walls were stained and peeling, but they were sturdy. Already, Ouma felt like he could live here for a while, even past how long it would be mandatory with the infected outside.

But then he saw the last bedroom.

He’d opened the door, and the room was already horrendous. The mattress was badly stained, clothes and trash flung about the room as it were struck by a hurricane. Furniture was broken so badly that Ouma couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be; anything that survived the destruction was fallen over or buried underneath the mess. The walls were stained dark, splatters looking suspiciously similar to blood. The former supreme leader had wanted to slam the door shut within a few seconds of looking. But he hesitated.

He hesitated because of the body slumped on the opposite wally a clear amber eye staring at him as the other, dulled and lifeless, bore into him with murderous intent.

He hesitated because there was an infected right there, looking seconds away from killing him.

Ouma immediately slammed the door shut, back shoved into it in case the sickened inside felt the need to try busting it down. 

He was dead. He was so dead. Not only was he trapped in this house for who knows how long, there was a fucking infected here. No matter what, there was absolutely no way that Ouma was going to survive to get outside the house when one of those cannibalistic motherfuckers was literally right behind him. 

He’d die like this. Pathetic, cowardly. Just a sitting duck waiting for the executioner to slit his throat while on his deathbed. No will to sign with everyone he ever cared about either dead or missing. Nothing he’d ever done worthwhile. No one to remember his name. Just a late-teenaged former ultimate dying alone to the infection, either succumbing to death or to illness, turning into one of the starving bodies that trudged down the long silent streets, purposeless.

No saying goodbye. No one to remember him. He hadn’t had as high hopes for his future as his bravado for others had displayed in the past; truly, Ouma Kokichi thought he’d die lonely from the get-go. It was his subconscious desire to prove that a lie that led to DICE, and it was his conscious effort to be a liar to push people away. Unlike how many, many people thought, he had sympathy. He wasn’t going to let someone be emotionally attached to him and make them feel unnecessary sorrow at his inevitable early death. 

He hadn’t wanted it like this.

Drenched in sweat, caked in dirt and dried blood, clothes ratty and skin covered in more scars than ever. Genuine fear on his face and searing his eyes with the painful need to release tears. Shaking from adrenaline and anxiety. Not wearing the confident smirk he’d always wanted to when faced with the grim reaper, but cowering, weeping like some pathetic beggar for just one more minute of life. He’d rather be struck down now, before the infected could get him-

At that moment, Ouma realized that he’d been panicking for several minutes. Several minutes, meaning that he was a) still alive, and b) not a single outside source, be it banging on the door, the signature guttural grunts of undead, or the pain of his flesh getting torn open like gift wrapping. 

There were a few reasons why that could be. The sickened in the room was taking it’s precious time getting to Ouma, which was impossible. The infected aren’t skilled predators; they’re reckless and stupid. The sickened could have already forgotten him, which was the best option. If Ouma just never opened the door and stayed mouse quiet for the duration of his impromptu stay, the zombie didn’t even have to know he was here. 

Unwilling to let ponderings drive him insane, Ouma slowly moved away from the door, and then opened it again. This time, instead of giving the entire room a cursory look, Ouma’s gaze went straight for where he remembered seeing the slumped figure of the infected.

The former supreme leader realized that there was a third option which he hadn’t considered. Hell, it hadn’t even occurred to him that it might happen. The shock and dread of the situation caused Ouma’s hand to go slack, the door creaking open fully to display the body on the floor.

Ouma had found himself in an impossibly worse situation.

Because the body was still alive.

~

The poor boy couldn’t speak. Or walk, for that matter. It had taken Ouma a full hour to work up the courage to get close enough to tell why. The entire time he’d stood in the farthest corner of the room from the barely alive person in the room, their one working eye had bore into him, looking both incredibly thoughtful and thoughtless at once.

The former supreme leader had eventually choked down his hesitation and disgust enough to get closer, crouching in front of the figure. Up close, it was easier to tell that the figure was a boy, around Ouma’s age range. Other than that, the same amount of dusty gore that coated Ouma disguised any other distinguishing features. The terrible light did that as well, thick curtains drawn tight enough that the room was still dark, even at high noon. 

What the darkness didn’t hide was the horror of the injuries dealt to the poor boy.

Half his face seemed rotted off, from the left cheekbone to his chin. The only thing that Ouma could describe it as was if someone had taken a rusty spade and scraped the guys face down to the bone. It went clear through the cheek, teeth visible from the outside. The reason why only one eye ever followed what Ouma did became clear from close up; the boy’s right eye was literally falling out of the socket, eyelid drooping over the ball more than it covered it. Every attempt at blinking only covered that eyeball halfway. It didn’t move, permanently stuck staring downward at the floor while the other uninjured one flitted about Ouma’s face, nervous and desperate. His hair was knotted and messy, black in the dim lighting. It seemed as if he hadn’t suffered any head injuries, skull still in order from the way that strands of hair flowed on top of it.

His body was worse. The outfit he was wearing looked like it hadn’t been washed in years, stained badly enough that the original color was lost in a hodgepodge of dark browns and greens. It consisted of an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants, both articles of clothing bearing tears on the extremities. The sweater having the left sleeve entirely ripped off around the elbow, and the right pant leg gone from the knee.

Ouma couldn’t see much underneath the relatively conservative outfit, but the obvious injuries were grotesque. At the same points where the fabric of the outfit was most torn, the limbs themselves were gone. The left arm ending at the elbow, right leg almost completely gone, only the upper half of the thigh filling out the slack fabric of the pant leg. Where the remains of the amputated parts were was a mystery, one that the former supreme leader had no desire to figure out.

It was clearly the missing leg that prevented the poor boy from moving. The speaking part was a bit harder to figure out. The sweater had a high collar, so only pulling it down would reveal the teen’s neck. And there was what Ouma had been silently searching for and wondering about.

The bite.

The infection was mostly spread through poisoned water in the beginning, then through human interaction. Just a handshake was enough to spread it. WHile that was the most common known way it spread, there were others, too.

The exact process of how the illness was engineered is unknown, but there were elements of existing diseases present in it. Mainly, the fact that it could spread through saliva, like rabies. It was the most inefficient way for the sickness to be passed on, so someone who was bitten turned slower than any other infection method.

There was no other reason why the boy would exist if not for being bitten. No uninfected human being out there could survive the injuries the guy had for longer than a few seconds, let alone the amount of time that it takes for the egregious amount of blood that the wounds would let out to dry like it had. On the opposite side, the boy wouldn’t have the amount of consciousness and thought - that he very clearly does - had he been infected any other way. Getting it through poisoned water caused the change in minutes. With contact it was about the same, but in that case there was the chance of prevention. Washing anywhere that an infected touched you could mean you could save yourself. It was common knowledge at this point. anyone would’ve saved themselves before the turning got to this point had they been touched, including the boy.

The injuries might make it seem impossible, but it wasn’t. The rotting injuries developing was just a symptom, after all, sections of muscle and nerves dying on the spot, falling away spontaneously, or painfully slowly in this case.

The bite itself looked like an average bite: exactly how someone would go about biting an apple, but twisted and disgusting when translated into human flesh. As a person was tougher to bite than an apple, most bites were surface level, just small cuts where sharp teeth penetrate. This boy had gotten unlucky with it. While yes, most bites occurred in the neck, it was towards the base of the neck, the classic vampire spot. If not that, it was underneath the ear, targeting the artery underneath the jaw.

This bite was in the dead center and front on his neck, savagely tearing into his throat. It was far beyond surface level; whichever sickened had bitten him had been strong enough to take the actual flesh with them when they pulled off. The wound had long stopped bleeding, now just a gaping hole in the throat. The Tearing had just missed the vocal cords themselves, but they were clearly visible, damaged but still intact. Speaking was probably possible if they didn’t get hurt further, but that was a complete guess. Ouma was no doctor, so it was completely possible that the half-infected was rendered completely mute. Or not. He wasn’t speaking now, though.

The former supreme leader pushed the high collar back to cover up the injury. Whether or not the fact that the sweater covered the sight was intentional, the boy’s face looked relieved to have it covered again. Understandable. No one wants to have their internal workings on display to people they don’t know.

Once Ouma was done figuring out everything he could visually, the next step was just confirming the muteness. It was a bet, whether or not asking would actually give a result. There was a likelihood that he could speak, but the shitty state of his body could prevent speech - past the gore, he just looked like shit in general. Tired, hungry, and incredibly thirsty. Slow turns didn’t get rid of human necessities, just slowed down their urgency. At this point in the change, it’d take more than a day for an infected to start feeling hunger pangs. When the turn fully occurred, the urge would come back with murderous vengeance, and never cease. Zombies never were satisfied, after all.

The human was going to try, though.

Unsure and awkward, the only thing that escaped Ouma’s mouth was “Uh, hi?”

The half-dead stared at him blankly. His eyes were wide overall, and the emptiness that overcame the other’s expression made them seem like dark voids, amber turning to tea brown. The furrow in the one visible brow not covered by his hair meant that he was probably just confused, but the dead eye that wasn’t in the socket just made it chilling. 

After a solid few moments of uneasy tension, a curious low hum escaped the turning’s throat.

That meant that speech was possible. Yeah, that was good. That meant learning more information. “Why are you in here?”

The half zombie opened his mouth to answer. Unfortunately, the words that came out were so slurred and garbled that no message was carried. The dark haired undead looked frustrated at that. He just ended up shaking his head. So long answer questions were a no go, then.

“Well, what’s your name? Can you manage that?” It sounded demeaning once it was out the former supreme leader's mouth. He felt little shame for it, even when the infected amputee winced. Friendliness wasn’t really something that Ouma practiced before the world went to shit. It especially wasn’t something to use during the end of the world. Why should he start now?

Even with the rude question, the other tried to answer, eyes both down - one intentional, the other just as a coincidence - and mouth pursed in concentration. “Saai-” it turned to a garbled murmur, then picked up again. “Sh-Shuu. . .” The rest was lost after the infected coughed, the majority of the name turning into complete gibberish. Ouma nodded as if he’d gotten the full thing anyway.

“Sounds nice! Sai something Shuu something.” Ouma slumped back to sit down fully against the wall. “I guess I’ll call you Sai-chan for now. That good, Sai-chan?”

The newly dubbed Sai-chan looked downtrodden. Likely because of the high chance that Ouma’s interpretation of his name was completely wrong. He nodded anyway.

“Alrighty, Sai-chan. I’m gonna be your new roommate. My name is Ouma Kokichi! A bunch of infected are having a party right outside the door, so I can’t leave now. So I hope the fact that I’m intruding doesn’t bother you too much.” Ouma glanced at the bloody stump that was Sai-chan’s right leg. The sort-of zombie shifted under the attention, averting his eyes nervously. Ouma’s heart twinged a bit. The former supreme leader empathically wrapped his arms around the infected, upping the cheery attitude. Some happiness would do both of them good. “We’re gonna get along so well, I just know it, Sai Shuu-chan!”

The human got an unsure hum in response.

~

After the introduction to his new roommate, Ouma began the slow process of changing the house to fit his tastes.

From the start, the place was already structured nicely. All the rooms branched off from the living room, which was essentially the same as the kitchen. Accessing any room would be easy and quick. Not good for hiding, but he was already doing that by staying indoors. 

Most of the changes were just trying to fix what had gotten ruined by the fact that it was the apocalypse. Putting any flipped over furniture back where it should be, attempting to repair any damaged necessities, and scavenging the kitchen for any unrotten food. The food was rotten, which was a given but Ouma had still hoped anyway. 

The former supreme leader moved most of the stuff he wanted into the undamaged room next to his impromptu roommate’s. That room was cleaner by a landslide, and his paranoia of the sickened killing him in his sleep was lessened a bit by the separation of the wall and doors. It was a ridiculous fear, seeing as Sai-chan couldn’t even stand up, but irrationality is just that: irrational.

Unfortunately, the human got a nasty surprise when examining the closet further. Specifically, a disembodied leg falling from above and nearly knocking him unconscious. It scared him bad enough for him to let out an embarrassingly high yelp and stumble, falling over his own feet. The limb fell too, landing on the floor directly in front of him. The thing looked horrific, dirty and bloodied bad enough to look like a fake Halloween prop. The cut off was mid-thigh, a decent amount of bone poking out where the flesh ended.

Just a moment of thought led to the realization that this was where Sai-chan’s leg had gone. 

The first question was why. Why would the limb be in a totally separate room from the body it came from? The break was too messy for it to have been cut, so there was no way that someone could have just cut it off and stowed it away. The thing would have had to have fallen off naturally. And then somehow was stored in a closet. How would it even get there? If Sai-chan had been in this room when it finally broke, then he would have had to stay here, right? There’s no walking with that bad of an injury. Even if he could manage to hop back to the other room, he had no reason to.

Whatever the reason, it was freaky as hell.

And a twisted part of the former supreme leader wanted to return it back to the owner.

And who was Ouma to deny himself what he wanted?

~

The best way that Ouma could think to describe the emotions on Sai-chan’s face when he burst through the door holding an amputated limb was just pure, unadulterated confusion.

He stomped his way over to the sort-of zombie, falling to his knees and holding out the disgusting gift like it wasn’t the horrific thing it was. “Look, Sai-chan, I found your leg!”

The receiver of said gift looked like he’d have gone scrambling away if it weren’t for the absence of his left arm. His expression was honestly priceless, and Ouma had to make an effort to keep himself from bursting into incredulous giggles.

“Here, lemme put it back where it belongs for you.”

A distressed sort of whine escaped the infected’s throat, the stumpy leftovers of his leg shifting while Ouma rolled the damaged sweatpants leg covering it up to expose the tearing point. The sight was vomit inducing, but Ouma shoved down his nausea in place of lining up the missing part like a puzzle piece.

In the end, the former supreme leader closed his eyes as he fully put the limb back, and then opened them when the thing wouldn’t push any closer. In the end, the leg didn’t end up fitting that well, just two bones connecting while the flesh in between was gone, looking like a very unevenly eaten corn on the cob.

Sai-chan was looking at it too, melancholy in his eyes. The infected curled up his still working limbs, holding on to his half arm with his other like a lifeline. His jaw was trembling, visible through the gouged hole in his face. Literal body horror, but it’s not like the black-haired boy could look in a mirror and see what he looked like. 

Ouma watched the sickened’s face as it morphed from sadness to shock, a surprised cry warbling out of his destroyed throat. His still attached hand flew down to where his leg was served, and was sewing back together.

What.

They both watched in abstract horror and awe as the flesh of the loosely attached limb grew and stretched out to attach to the stump attached to Sai-chan, said boy wincing as it made contact. The connection strengthened, the bone being covered up by the repairing muscle and fat. Veins snaked their way back and forth between the two not-so-severed leg and stump, blood flowing through them. Slowly, the flesh built back up again to be the width that it was supposed to be. The skin connected and sealed together, covering up the break completely. What once was the rotted remains of what used to be a connected limb had regenerated so fully that the only thing that showed for the fact that they were disconnected at all was a pink ring of irritated skin, and nothing more.

Both of them went in with a hand and felt the spot, making sure it was real. Sai-chan looked completely dumbstruck, and Ouma was willing to bet he looked the same. I mean, there was no reason he wouldn’t, as his emotions consisted of only that single feeling. The whole thing had regenerated! It was never going to be attached once, and then it’s back on like some sort of freaky magnetic toy.

Unsure, Sai-chan slowly pulled the leg closer with his hands hovering around it, wide eye getting teary as the muscles legitimately worked as he used them, both of his legs bunched tight to his chest. 

The human could see why. The semi-infected had been confined to being slumped against the wall forever when that leg fell off, and now it was back. While it moved shakily with the rest of him, his entire body fatigued and leg not much better, it opened the boy back up to the entire world. At least, for however long he stayed sane enough to actually enjoy it.

Ouma thought back to that bite with dread. It was hidden at present, Sai-chan having shoved his head into his knees, neck completely invisible to the outside world. But it spelled so much worse for Ouma. 

Once the infection took the zombie over, things like fatigue and hunger wouldn’t prevent him from getting up and eating the former supreme leader to the bone. Before attaching that leg, Ouma had a chance of surviving past Sai-chan’s inevitable turn, as he wouldn’t be able to walk. Now he could. Ouma was now doomed to fall to either the monsters outside, or the monster bound to take over the pathetic figure of the half turned boy sitting in front of him.

Maybe giving the leg back was a bad idea. Just maybe.

~

Even though Ouma knew it was a horrible idea, he thought it was about time to feed the infected.

Part of the reason he eventually ended up making this decision was guilt. Even though Sai-chan wasn’t able to tell him how long he’d been confined to staying in that unkempt room, it was obvious that it had worn at him. The excitement that the half-infected boy got from getting the ability to walk again wasn’t enough for him to actually stand, muscles too exhausted and atrophied to carry even his own small weight.

Because Sai-chan was skinny. Skinny enough to likely be around Ouma’s weight, despite looking as if he had a decent amount of height on the human. It was difficult to tell from the floor and with the modest outfit, but with the amount of fabric swamping his figure without touching his actual skin, it was easy to tell. The loss of his left arm just made him look smaller, the missing sight of the forearm only pronouncing the narrowness of his silhouette. Combining those factors with the display of his shy demeanor made Ouma feel much bigger, as big as his bravado made him seem. 

Anyway, Ouma was tired of seeing the pitiful sight of watching the zombie shuffle in place on his spot on the floor, hunger and desperation clear on his face whenever Ouma had recently opened food. Apparently, Sai-chan was far enough into turning for the hypersensitive senses to come up. Made Ouma more paranoid, but also feel pity. It had to be agonizing, hearing and smelling every time food was close by, but too weak to even attempt reaching it.

The former supreme leader had been needlessly cruel in the past, but after a few days of contemplating it, he finally caved.

Any sort of expression that the zombie could have had prior to the human entering was lost to the instant blankness of focus as the boy’s one eye focused on Ouma’s hand as he entered. All he was holding was a generic soup can from the cellar - proving to be quite nasty after he tried it - but Sai-chan was already whining about it, restlessly trying to fumble over to where Ouma stood. He failed instantly, ending up belly first on the carpet, but then the sickened just started scraping his hand against the floor for traction, handless arm waving in the air. He must’ve forgotten its amputated state in desperation.

Pathetic. Excruciatingly sad to watch.

Wanting to get it over with, Ouma stepped across the room, crouching in front of the starving infected on the floor. Instead of passing the can over, the former supreme leader rolled it, and watched in abject revulsion as the semi-zombie’s horribly bitten nails sunk right into the side of the metal can, tearing into the side of it through brute force alone.

Sai-chan’s lips pulled back, needle sharp teeth on display for a split second before biting straight into it, flinging scraps of the can away and then shoving his face into the exposed and spilling soup, paying no mind to the fact it was lukewarm and dirtied by the floor it was splattering all over. The human just watched, weird feelings akin to sadness swimming in his head. The fact that this person he’d just met a few days ago had already been scrambled enough by illness to fall into the savage and primal ways that full-on zombies practiced daily felt disappointing. Though he refused to admit it, Ouma felt a bit of guilt over it.

Sure, he logically knew that there was no possible way for him to have prevented this boy’s bite. Nor any way for him to save him from the inevitable turn, as no cure existed or will exist. More optimistic people would have been more hesitant to say the latter, but it was the truth in Ouma’s eyes. Too few people were alive to try. Let alone someone who had the medical prowess to even know how to begin. Even if that were true, there was no way to distribute the cure, or even let others know of its existence. No form of communication besides direct conversation worked anymore. 

Thinking of that, Ouma turned back to the semi-infected beside him. The navy-haired boy had completely demolished the can, and everything inside. From the look of how his movements of his breath had slowed from it’s feverish pant and how his eyes were closed, the former supreme leader was willing to bet that he’d fallen asleep. 

There was no way that anyone who knew this future undead would know what happened, unless they were around before Ouma arrived. Highly unlikely, taking in the former state of the house and it’s occupant. Only the human would be around to watch as the last bit of sanity this unknown person had drained away and was replaced by mindless starving mania. Ouma had only just met them and was already dreading it.

There was no reason to think so hard about such pessimistic things right now. They had both eaten, and the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, if the impenetrable darkness behind the curtains had anything to say. So The former supreme leader scrambled up to lay on the ratty mattress a few meters away and promptly fell asleep, unworried about any sudden attacks from the passed out body just an arms length away.

There was no reason to fear him anymore. They were sort of in the same boat, weren’t they? Alone in an abysmal shithole of a world.

At least there was some comfort in their shared misery.

~

Ouma woke up to a finger poking into his face and a bare eyeball hanging centimeters from his face.

He’d long suppressed the instinct to immediately shoot upward, so instead he froze, watching as the unmoving iris moved to be replaced by one that was solidly in place. The hand was still poking his cheek, the expression on who Ouma now recognized as Sai-chan’s face one of blank curiosity.

The former supreme leader held a hand up to grab the half-zombie’s, now wide awake. The face above his didn’t change, but the head tilted a bit. He tried to ignore how the movement caused the hanging eye to swing from where it was connected to the inside of the sickened’s skull. “You can stop now, Sai-chan. I’m awake.”

Silence, and then, “. . H-h-hel-loooo.”

The word was heavily slurred, clumsily making it out of the zombie’s mouth. Stuttery and mangled, but now clear enough to understand. It seemed that hunger and thirst were the only reason behind the muteness afterall. Ouma felt a tiny bit of pride before gently pushing the other’s face away in order to sit up.

They were both now situated on the dirty mattress, Sai-chan only halfway slung over it and Ouma still fully supported by it. The human hadn’t moved at all in his sleep, but the zombie had, if how he woke up to the undead above him had anything to say. The curtains weren’t as dark, sunlight bright enough to shine a little bit through and around them, making the room much brighter than previous. From how directly the sun was hitting the window, it must’ve been early morning. Good. It meant that Ouma was still staying sharp to how he’d been before staying here.

Turning back to face the semi-infected beside him, the human remembered that he had yet to respond to Sai-chan and his ‘conversation’ quickly, he spat out a “Yeah, hi. Do you feel better today? After eating and the uh-” He glanced down at the still reddened seam on the zombie’s right leg. “-leg, thing, I mean.”

Unsure formations of the mouth. The undead bit his lip, also turning to the restored limb. Shifting it, he responded. “Ye-ye-ah. An-and-” The boy scrambled to stand, one working arm struggling to support the sickened’s slow movements upward. After a few moments of awkward shifting and stumbles, the undead was successfully - and very much unsteadily - on his feet, legs shaking badly but managing to keep him up. A smile was on the boy’s face, only impeded by the lack of face muscles on his left jaw. “I-I ca-n staan-nd. . !”

Ouma blinked, and then hoisted himself up to match his impromptu roommate. Like he’d previously guessed, the undead was indeed taller, by around 15 centimeters from the look of it. It was a bit off, with the former supreme leader standing on the thin mattress and the zombie on the floor, posture decently hunched and knees bent slightly. But by now, Ouma was good enough at guessing for him to be confident he was right. So instead of giving it any more thought, he moved on.

“It’s so great that you can stand now, Sai-chan! Can you walk too?” A genuine question hidden within an excitable personality. There was no real reason behind doing so besides wanting to pretend that he didn’t feel like shit, but the way that Sai-chan lit up was also a good motivator.

“N-not tri-ied . . . w-anted. . . Ou-uma-kun to see. . .”

Ah. 

Ouma was lucky for the relative darkness of the room and his masterful ability to hide his emotions. Otherwise, he’d have already given in to the overwhelming urge to give the semi-infected in front of him a hug. The human didn’t have too much of an affinity for cute things, but there was no way in hell that anyone could listen to someone saying that and not want to dissolve into a mushy pile of heartwarming goo. Nasty emotions, but comforting. So the former supreme leader relished in them for a moment before squashing them down.

“Well then, Sai-chan, let’s give it a shot!” More positivity. Ouma hopped down onto the actual floor, holding a hand out. “Hold onto me while we go. Don’t want your half-zombie guts going flying if you trip or something.”

Wordlessly, the zombie fitted his intact hand into Ouma’s and slowly stumbled forward. Immediately he tripped, foot too close to the ground to properly move forward. The human caught him, trying to ignore how the seemingly endless pour of blood from the boy’s face indent got all over his shoulder. He still couldn’t hide a shiver at the sensation, however, and quickie lifted the other back onto his feet.

Once the half-zombie was fully upright again, Ouma had to bite back a laugh at the genuine pout on his face. It was so immature and overall childish, coming from someone who was rotting and literally falling apart at the seams. And the thing that brought that betrayed frown onto his face was a single slip up when trying to relearn how to walk.  
It was weird, actually; a lot of things about Sai-chan were weird. He didn’t seem too bothered by the state of his body; typically, Ouma would think that the average person would be more upset about it, whether it be through panicking or explosive anger. This zombie seemed like he’d been that way for his entire life, not even paying attention to all the times his swinging eye touched his hair besides the automatic response to just, push it back in. Like that was normal. 

Personalitywise, the infected was strange, too. It was clear that the bite had scrambled whatever the guy’s former personality was like. There were shy motions and mannerisms shown in his more lucid moments, but the animalistic way that he’d attacked the can showed that it wasn’t too clear how much that line had been crossed. His thought process was affected in some way, Ouma could tell. In general, his response time was slow, and sentences were simplistic, beyond what someone would do to avoid pain when speaking if their throat was damaged. 

It was sad to think that the former supreme leader would never know exactly who this person was. It was likely that his memories were slowly fading, if the little information that Ouma knew about the infection was right. So knowing about his past was unlikely as time wore on. Plus, the boy wouldn’t talk often, and when he did, it was vague. 

Ouma rolled the thoughts around in his head as the two slowly made their way across the room, both facing each other as the human guided the semi-infected along. It was steady progress, Sai-chan having already figured out the right amount of force to put into each step in order to not fall.

After a solid few minutes, their quiet and rather lethargic journey ended with the zombie collapsing into one of the few intact chairs that the human had managed to repair. It wobbled unsteadily, but held firm as the person on top of it slouched against the broken kitchen island, sighing. 

“You look pretty upset there. What’s wrong?” Ouma hopped up to sit on the island across from his roommate. “Hungry again?”  
The zombie perked up, head rolling up to face Ouma again. “Y-yessss. . .!” It came out in an exaggerated whine, not unlike an upset child. Sai-chan’s head fell onto the cracked granite surface with an audible thunk, a long ahoge pointing upwards at Ouma’s face from the angle. Seemed as if even that small effort of lifting his head exhausted him “A-and. . . t-tiiired-! Wa-alking. . . h-hard. . .” 

“Well then, why didn’t you say so!” Ouma bounced over to the pantry, pushing the barely connected door aside to look at the collection of food. The shelves were trashed, boxes knocked over and some spilling their contents on the floor. The first thing that Ouma’s eyes landed on that wasn’t damaged in some way was a box of saltines. “Uhm, we got crackers, if you don’t mind them being stale?”

The former supreme leader turned to see the zombie energetically throwing his arms forward, single hand making grabbing motions to the box that the human had pulled down. Ouma threw it to him, turning to lean against the counter as he watched and listened to the cacophony of the infected tearing the thing open and digging into the snack inside.

“Dang, Sai-chan, food really does shut you up, doesn’t it . . .” Ouma didn’t receive much of a response. Just a small moment where the semi-zombie’s head flickered up and he stuck his tongue out, and then went back to destroying the poor box of saltines.

It was disgusting to watch, but sort of funny. The human hid his giggles behind a hand, but still received a dirty look for it from the infected. It just made him laugh harder. A relief, after the immense tension and hopelessness of the outside world. Just a few moments of peace to forget how fucked up everything was. The former supreme leader never thought that a new reason for him to live would be found in a half-dead boy that he’d found rotting in some random abandoned house, but he had.

Ouma didn’t think he was going to mind his new roommate much. If at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MMMMM what's up homies.
> 
> I love this story more than I will anything else ever. A bold declaration, but it's also bold of the universe to dare try and make that statement untrue. Just,,,, my only works up rn are angsty but I am WEAK for fluff so baddsgnvfdljk
> 
> Hah okie dokie that's all I wanted so say. Toodles, my noodles~! BD


	2. Tomatoes and Things That Aren't Tomatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attempt at farming. It goes pretty good, but other things happen, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel that I wasn't planning on making but happened anyway. Oops. I'm sorry, I just liked the thing too dang much to let it go and I couldn't force myself to write anything else and now I feel like this whole thing is WAY out of hand but hey. Tomatoes.

Ouma figured that if he were to be staying long term, he needed a supply of fresh food.

Not that the seemingly infinite amount that was stored in the cellar wasn’t good enough; in fact, Ouma was willing to grudgingly admit that he might’ve shed a tear - or a few - out of sheer relief at no longer having to scavenge when he first arrived. No, the human just thought that if he was being trapped in a house that had a securely closed in yard with arguably using dirt, he would make use of it.

And yes, the place had a yard. It was fenced in, in a way that displayed the unhealthy paranoia the previous owner of the house harbored. The fence wasn’t really a fence at al, really. Ouma had looked out the back windows of the house to see concrete walls, fucking _concrete walls_ encasing the small amount of land behind the property, at least six feet tall and looking as if it’d be more at home surrounding a high security government facility. Definitely overkill for what looked to be the remnants of a small vegetable garden, now sad and wimpy as it went unattended in the apocalypse.

Just the thought of eating an actual fruit or vegetable instead of the greasy and processed cubes found in cans made Ouma’s mouth water, so his next goal was to fix up that garden. It would be a good pastime anyway, seeing as the zombies parked outside the property were still stationed there after a solid two weeks of waiting.

Over those two weeks, Ouma had also gotten to know Sai-chan better. 

The more they. . . _hung out_ , the more the human learned about the sort-of zombie. In actuality, his roommate was a bit, no, a lot like having a pet, funnily enough. Or maybe a rotting child. He’d get whiny and pouty of Ouma ignored him, and always ripped into the food that the human gave him with reckless abandon that still startled Ouma, even after seeing it so many times. The few times that Sai-chan spoke about anything, the former supreme leader was about to glean more bits about his past. 

The clearest of this was when Ouma had been lounging on the torn up couch, reading a beaten up copy of some sort of mystery novel he’d found on a shelf in the room he’d been staying in. Sai-chan had staggered in from the kitchen, and collapsed halfway onto the couch next to him, a dreamy quality in the one still moving eye he had.

Ouma had sat up and asked, “what’s up, Sai-chan~?”

The infected sighed, pushing his hanging eyeball back into its socket absentmindedly. “I-I am . . . sad?”

“Why is that a question?” Ouma had put the book down on the floor at this point. “I thought that emotions weren’t scrambly for you?”

“N-no, I . . . a-am . . . c-con- fu-used . . .” Sai-chan looked more and more frustrated as he talked. “B-be-en . . s-sssick for . . .” A sad sounding sigh, and then the infected’s face was concealed in the ratty sofa cushions. “L-long.”

“Huh.” Ouma didn’t really know what to do about that. It’s not like he could just cure him, and the zombie knew that. So what was he asking. “Why’s that gotcha down, Sai-chan? I thought you we’re used to it.”

“Y-yesss. . . tr-ue, but-!” The shout was muffled, but still loud enough to startle the both of them. The sickened’s voice took on a whiny quality. “N-n-not change! C-can . . . s-stil. . . thhhink-k.”

It took a moment for the statement to process in the human’s brain, then, “oh.”

The infected was wondering why the change wasn’t progressing. It was actually a good question, one that Ouma hadn’t asked yet, for some reason. Yes, the infection by bite took very long, but at max, it could take around a month. From how Sai-chan was when he first arrived, he’d had to have been at least halfway through, based on that time period. And nothing from the sickened’s state had changed since then. He could speak just as well - better in fact, because of the more constant food supply and the practice he got from speaking with Ouma. Nothing else on his body had fallen off, either. The leg they’d put back on stayed intact, even though the zombie’s balance was wobbly at best. One would think that someone had just paused Sai-chan’s change altogether.

It was then that they came to the conclusion that Sai-chan must’ve had some sort of immunity.

There was no other answer they could come to, and it made sense. If the sickened had some sort of partial immunity, it would allow for turning to take hold, but not go through fully. The fact that Ouma wasn’t infected by him was also explained with that as well; if the disease couldn’t take hold well enough in an original host, it couldn’t really spread efficiently either, if at all. It could have also been full immunity, because no one really had any idea of how that would look like. The fact that his roommate would stay lucid was a relief, either way; Ouma’s lifespan had increased damn near exponentially with that. Now the human no longer had to fear having the infected turning him into being a rotten undead, and Sai-chan no longer had to worry about waking up with his sanity gone.

That conclusion gave Ouma the right amount of push to let the zombie assist in his endeavor for gardening.  
  
So he’d rummaged around in the closets around the house until he came upon some mostly intact bags of seeds along with a spade. He’d grabbed Sai-chan from where he’d been collapsed next to him to watch him find the materials and dragged them both outside, into the dim and cloudy light of the sun.

The yard itself was structured in a very straightforward way, with cracked slabs of stone surrounding the back door being a sad imitation of a patio, and overgrown grass and weeds overtaking nearly all the rest of it. Just a small patch where the growth was shorter was where the leftover garden was. Garden was an exaggeration, really; the label only encompassing a lot of semi-usable soil with barely alive tomatoes hanging from ragged supports. Ouma could barely tell they were tomatoes, seeing as only one of the actual fruits had formed, and was so shriveled it could pass as an abnormally large raisin. In total, it all came together in a fabulous show of “good enough”.

Ouma trotted down to the dirt patch, Sai-chan half laying on top of his left shoulder as he knelt down to pick where the new seeds would go. Seeing as Ouma was no way an expert in botany, he took the liberty to ask his half-dead companion his opinion. It was probably his house in some capacity, so giving him a choice was sort of mandatory, right?

Either way, Sai-chan had confidently tried to point at a specific part, but it was overshadowed by the fact he’d tried to do so with his still missing arm. He couldn’t point with the other one, seeing as it was the only thing keeping the infected upright were he was slouched in the dirt next to the human. Ouma ended up playing guess and check for a solid ten minutes until he found the exact spot that his roommate wanted, and haphazardly scraped the dirt away and threw a couple of seeds in. There wasn’t a specific amount of seeds required for this, according to Ouma’s shoddy knowledge, so he just covered it back up. 

Now that he thought about it, there _were_ some plants that had finicky growing conditions. That made him worry, but then he figured that the most essential had to already have been taken care of. If the tomatoes that the previous owner planted had grown and were still - sort of - growing today, months into the end of the world, then they would survive now. As long as neither he or Sai-chan royally fucked up. How hard can it be to fuck up gardening anyway? They just need water and to not get eaten.  
  
On that note, Ouma asked the sickened beside him to go get a jug of water from the kitchen. After the human had raided the basement, he’d brought up all the jugs of water and a decent amount of food kept down there to either the kitchen or hid them. Only a few in the kitchen for easy access, and most hidden for any dangerous situations. If the place ended up getting raided by anyone other than him, he wanted to at least keep some essentials afterward.

So the zombie had stumbled up to his feet and staggered back into the house. Outside, the former supreme leader had waited a full ten minutes before going back inside to see why it was taking so long. Apparently, Sai-chan was both too skinny and too dead to carry a water jug. From the looks of how the infected was face down on the floor next to a barely moved water jug, he’d tried dragging in, and then fallen over when his legs gave out. Ouma then remembered that it’s quite difficult to do any heavy lifting when one of your arms is missing and half the time your muscles don’t work.

The day ended with the human getting the water out to the seeds, and them both sleeping on the couch near the door. The zombie had mumbled something about wanting to be able to see the plants grow, and Ouma complied. It’d be entertaining enough. After all, how long could it take for tomatoes to grow?

~

It took over two months for the first tomato to be ripe enough to pick.

At first, Ouma hadn’t even known that it was ripe: the plant was still green, with abstract darker stripes over it. It really looked more like a small watermelon. It took asking Sai-chan and waiting for the infected to struggle to carry a thick book outside from a closet to realize what it was. The tomatoes that he’d planted were apparently called green zebra tomatoes, according to the book. Not something Ouma would have known, due to the fact the seed packs he’d found lacked any form of label. The book also stated that it took from 60 to 100 days for them to be fully ready for harvesting, so it explained the long wait. It also said that they were edible, so Ouma wasn’t about to waste them.

Both the former supreme leader and the zombie ended up picking a few tomatoes off the plant each, storing a few inside the inoperational refrigerator. There was no electricity to keep them fresh, so Ouma figured they may as well eat them now. They spoiled fast, after all. 

The human didn’t really know what to make, so he asked for his roommates opinion. Not that either of them really knew a specific use for tomatoes, but he figured that the sickened probably knew more recipes, seeing as he was occupying a house that had so much gardening supplies laying around. 

Sai-chan had pondered the question for a while, before mumbling out, “M-mo-ost. . . rec-ipesss we c-c-can’t . . . make. . .” he fiddled with his collar. The sweater he’d originally been wearing had never come off, as each time Ouma had offered to help him change, the undead staunchly refused. It had to be because of the bite. It was a bit unnecessary, because Ouma had obviously already seen it, but he wasn’t about to breach the zombie’s privacy. Even if he didn’t and wouldn’t ever hunger for flesh, he still had the ability to chomp his head off. The worryingly sharp teeth that Ouma saw on the occasion that the zombie yawned or ate were not forgotten, not by a long shot.  
  
“That’s actually a really good point, Sai-chan~!” Ouma piled the tomatoes he had in his hands onto the kitchen island, across from where the infected was slouching. “Most things I can think of with tomatoes have all these other fresh things in them, and we can’t really grow meat out the ground, can we?”

It was rhetorical, but the zombie still enthusiastically shook his head. The confidence in the movement was endearing, even though it was offset by the violent swinging of his half-inserted eyeball it caused. Ouma suppressed an involuntary shiver. The look on Sai-chan’s face was determined. “N-no. . ! W-e c-c-can’t . . !”

“Uhuh, that’s right!” Ouma agreed. He sort of felt like he was talking to a child, but he always felt at least a little bit like that with the zombie. “So we should stick to something basic. Uh. . .” the former supreme leader glanced into the pantry, and was struck with an idea. “Oh! How about we make pasta sauce? Or, like, just make pasta and put tomato slices on it.”

The expression on the infected’s face only got more excited. Along with it, an even more vigorous nod. At this point, the freeflying eye had fallen far enough to scrape a bit at Sai-chan’s nose, the fleshy hole behind where eyes sat in the skull fully on view with the wide open state of his eyelid. The sickened hadn’t moved to put it back at all, too caught up with the idea of food to notice the grotesque sight and the way that Ouma’s smile was slowly twitching into a grimace.

“O-okay, let’s do that!” The former supreme leader took the chance to turn away, snatching a half busted box of spaghetti out of the pantry and locating a large pot from one of the cupboards. The pot got shoved onto the stove, and the box right beside it on the dirty counter. He heaved a jug of water up from the floor and poured a decent amount into the pot. He then realized that they had no way of actually heating the water. “Uh, Sai-chan?”

A curious grunt came from behind. 

“We don’t have any way to boil the pasta.”

The sound of violent shuffling came from behind, along with the loud clatter of a chair falling, before the space next to where Ouma was standing was occupied by the zombie the human was living with. The other blinked at the water filled pot, and then at Ouma. Back to the pot, then Ouma. The human stared back.

Sai-chan then half-tripped his way into opening a seemingly random drawer, pulling out a box of matches. Directly underneath that drawer was a cabinet, from which the zombie nearly fell over in front of trying to drag the entirely full _canister of gasoline_ out from inside. The former supreme leader was shocked enough at the sight that the infected was able to open the top of the canister and try to shove a fully lit match inside.

“Wait, what? Wait, _wait_ , Sai-chan, you can’t do that!”

Ouma scrambled over, grabbing the zombie’s arm and pulling it away from the highly flammable liquid before he could drop the match inside. The infected looked at him, pouting. As if he hadn’t almost attempted the burn the entire house down, whether deliberately or in a misguided attempt to boil water.

"W-hyyy? I-I wann-a h-h-help O-Ouma-kun!"

The pure ignorance in his eyes would have been charming in any other situation. But Staring into that singular scarily empty eye while they sat in front of a tub of gasoline, the smoking match in the infected’s hand barely 50 centimeters above the thick propane, Ouma only felt a jolt of reality. Sure, Sai-chan was mostly sentient, and definitely capable of being mostly passable as a functioning human, he was still turned. There was no way that the guy would ever be fully human; even if it were ever to become possible, there was no way that it would be within either of their lifetimes. 

Ouma abruptly ripped the match away, stomping on it and smothering the flame with his boot. The pout on the zombies face almost made him regret it. “Sai-chan, do you know what gasoline and fire do when mixed?”

The infected’s brows furrowed. “B . . . b-burn. Hot.”

“Uhuh. And you know what also happens?”

Sai-chan looked at him blankly. He stayed quiet.

Ouma made aggressive eye contact, molding his expression into something dark. “It blows up. If you’d done that, both of us would’ve been turned into smears of blood and guts on the wall.” He leaned closer, his roommate scrambling back a bit, looking nervous. “ _Do you want that?_ ”

The sickened looked close to crying. “N-nooo. . . n-n-not aga-ain-!” His intact arm flew up to cover his head, shaking slightly. His voice trailed off in a series of murmurs, repeating the phrase over and over. Ouma stopped and just looked, mask falling to show genuine emotion once more.

“. . . again?” The human turned his voice softer, crouching back to his knees to be less intimidating. The zombie still wasn’t really looking at him. “What do you mean by that, Sai-chan?”

Through the gaping hole in the zombie’s cheek, Ouma could see that the muscles in his face were trembling just as hard as his lips, lame eye fully pushed in from the pressure of his arm against his face. Both legs were slowly getting pulled tight to the undead’s chest, back resting against a cabinet. The answer came out in a whisper. “F-f-fi-ire . . . . ru-ruinedd. . .”

“Ruined what?” 

He didn’t get a response. The conversation ended there, with abrupt and stuttering quiet. For a while, they both just ended up sitting on the floor across from each other. Ouma eventually moved to finish the abandoned attempt to make food, glancing every so often at the essentially paralyzed undead on the floor. The thoughts and questions that crowded the former supreme leaders head made the process of cooking slow, and the tough time he had getting a small flame started in the bone dry sink only made it slower. Even through all of that time, Sai-chan didn’t move. After the shaking stopped, he just slumped there, looking completely dead.

It was a bit scary, honestly. The rotted state of his body and the complete utter silence just made it more convincing. Even the subtle lack of hearing him breathe felt large and uncomfortable. The infected’s heart still pumped, fortunately, and Ouma hummed absently and awkwardly to the beat of it, watching the shadows outside grow steadily darker and deeper until it was black. The only light came from the tiny flame in the sink basin that Ouma had been nursing for the past few hours. It was just enough light to eat in, so that’s what the human did.

During the silence, he pondered. Mostly about Sai-chan, just a meter away from where he sat. Throughout their time together, Ouma did learn about the zombie’s many quirks. The one he was thinking of now was the memory loss. The other’s memory seemed to come and go like the tide, revealing things one moment, and then falling back into obscurity later. It mostly happened with simple things, though. The most prominent of which being when Sai-chan forgot how to open doors. Ouma had caught him whining against the door to his bedroom, pounding on the door as if the doorknob wasn’t just above his head. When the human had asked what was wrong, the sickened hadn’t said anything for nearly twenty minutes, before remembering

What that must’ve been was a more serious or important memory. The undead was talking about some event that he hadn’t mentioned before. It had to be related to fire, or more accurately, explosions because he’d only recalled it after Ouma had pressured him into talking about the topic. The event was likely dangerous, seeing as the zombie had said it “ruined” something before freezing up. Whatever it was, it seemed to be heavy, otherwise it wouldn’t have rendered Ouma’s roommate paralyzed for as long as it did. 

Ouma sighed, knowing that the likeliness of learning more was zero to none, unless he wanted a repeat of the day. Almost allowing a zombie to light his house on fire wasn’t something he wanted to experience more than once, thank you. Even if he did allow for that, he still felt like garbage for the result he got from pressuring Sai-chan. The other definitely wouldn’t have been shaking so bad if the memory wasn’t painful to some extent, and getting on anyone’s bad side, especially someone who was half infected with was was essentially Cannabalistic-Maniac disease, wasn’t on Ouma’s wish list.

So he sat the still semi-hot pot of spaghetti and tomato on the floor next to his roommate, left, and collapsed into bed, hoping the next day would bring answers.  
  


~  
  


The next day didn’t bring any new revelations. Nor did any of the days that followed. Ouma had woken up the next day to see that Sai-chan hadn’t moved from his spot, just slumped down to fully rest on the floor, pot formerly full of pasta scraped clean. Literally, as there were visible scratches along the inside, and small bits of black surrounding the area.

From the looks of it, Sai-chan was actually awake. His swinging eye never fully closed even when the eyeball was mostly in the socket anyway, but the intact one was wide open as well. He wasn’t moving or anything, so Ouma guessed that he was just resting. Or something. Probably not dead, because he can’t really get any _more_ dead, can he? At least Ouma didn’t think so. Still, he poked the others cheek to make sure. “Cheek” meaning the gross flesh cavern that was supposed to be hidden by a cheek but wasn’t so he had to poke directly onto the zombie’s bloody face muscles. Sai-chan pushed his hand away gently with his stumpy left arm and flipped to stare at Ouma. The human stared back.

“H-haahhh. . .” Sai-chan coughed. “Hi-i-?”

“Yeah, good morning, Sai-chan!” The former supreme leader plopped down next to the zombie like the night before. “Didja get a good sleep on the floor? Heard it’s extra comforting.”

The infected looked confused but nodded his assent. “U-uhmm . . ?”

“Mhmmmm~?” Ouma prompted. The sickened blinked, and scrambled slowly to sit and eventually stand. Ouma rose with him as the other stumbled around the kitchen island. “What’s on your mind?”

“I-I’mm s-s-sorryy,” Sai-chan uttered, moving to shove himself nearly fully inside the long gone warm fridge. Why, Ouma didn’t know. There wasn’t really anything in there. “F-for . . m-m-makinng you m-mad.”

The former supreme leader nodded, before realizing that the infected wouldn’t see it. “Well, it’s no biggie. People frustrate me all the time!” he stood slightly to the side while the zombie continued to rummage around deeper into the fridge than should probably be possible. It sort of gave Ouma a flashback to the magic wardrobe from Narnia, but only a little bit. He’s sure that those kids weren’t in the literal apocalypse, so. “I do want to know what you’re doing though, Sai-chan. People usually put their groceries _in_ the fridge, not through it.”

“Shhusshhhh.” Was his response. So Ouma lifted himself up onto the kitchen counter and waited for the zombie to finish whatever business he hand with the appliance.

A solid few minutes later - a few minutes, yeah. Who spends ten full minutes digging in their fridge - Sai-chan practically collapsed back out onto the floor, having shoved himself so fully inside that he’d nearly disappeared from view. In the sickened’s hands was some big box. Ouma immediately hopped off the counter to both help the zombie and see what it was he’d found. Whatever is was, it had the infected’s face in nearly a full smile, only impeded by how his lip couldn;t move past the gaping hole in his face. So really a lopsided smirk sort of thing, but joyful nonetheless. The zombie thrust the box into Ouma’s hands and told him to open it.

Hesitant, decently frightened, but intrigued, Ouma grabbed the zipper that was keeping it closed and opened it. Inside was an array of packets filled with what looked like fruit. Pulling one out lead to the realization that it was all freeze dried. The box had raspberries and strawberries mostly, but Ouma could spot a few apples. Ouma felt saddened for a moment, what with how they were all probably dry as hell, but remembered the colossal amount of water stored in this crazy person’s house. Said person was likely Sai-chan before the bite, not that he thought about it, if the zombie knew where this was. He looked up to see said infected still smiling, a bit of desperation twitching at the corners.

“Oh.” the human said intelligently. “You’re giving these to me as an apology, right?”

The other enthusiastically nodded. “F-f-fire wasss b-bad, s-s-so ffo-od th-that onlyyy ne-eeds w-water.” 

Ouma squinted at the other. His heart was once again melting for this terribly generous gift, and the sincerity that it was given with. He was confused a bit, still wondering about the whole explosion thing, though. Sai-chan might’ve just done this to make sure that the human shut up about the topic, however. Probable, however unintentional it could be. But Ouma sighed and shoved the doubts aside, and pulled all the fruit out to put away in the pantry. Turning back to the zombie still on the floor, he pasted a not entirely fake smile on his face. “Thanks, Sai-chan!”

“Uhuh!” Said the sickened, already standing back up, however slowly. “H-hope youuu l-l-ike, i-t!”

The other left the room, and Ouma was left alone in the kitchen. Slowly and methodically stowing the new treats away, Ouma thought about how surreal his life was with Sai-chan in it, and how much he didn’t mind one bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so not what I wanted. I barely remember what happened in the first chapter because I never reread but still decided to do this. ugh. I don't hate the writing itself, I just feel frustrated that after nearly a full month this is all I could manage. I'm gonna go and wallow in self pity and probably write even MORE of this because I have not restraint. I researched tomatoes for way too long for this, Why. I can only think of tomatoes when i look at this. Toodles, my Noodles. :")


End file.
